Countryside
Living in the countyside means being a bonafide member of a number yummy-mummy clubs. So the week is packed with story telling, singing class, baby yoga, swimming, craft for babies and mummies - each followed by coffee or a light lunch in a local cafe or bistro with other mummies, chatting away. And then its a ride home through beautiful countryside fields, the silence of which would lull any baby duck to sleep.
This is the good life.
Quicksand
Time is like quicksand or whatever that very soft sand-like thing that very quickly falls through hourglass timers we used to play word games, holding us to grainy deadlines. Memories of our life without duckling seem to have faded. To such an extent that when I now recall going to the movies or restaurants or just taking a nap in the middle of the day because I could, those events seem like light years away. As if I imagined them rather than actually did them. In fact so busy are we tending to a child and ensuring they get through each day happy and healthy that often the blurred pictures seem akin to a black and white movie. Only with screaming. And hair pulling.
I have had days in the past few months where I thought I would never leave the house again, what with a feeding-sleeping-pooping schedule that waits for no woman. But from months ago when each trip out was an adventure (which could go badly wrong with screaming {both me and duckling} and needed rations for an army) now we have become dab hands at it, planning well in advance, packing all our stuff and spending the day with friends and then taking duckling out to a restaurant for dinner with yet other friends. We have mchanisms to distract duckling, an understanding of what various whines groans and cries mean, and the confidence in our hands to soothe like we’ve been doing this our whole lives.
My day is spent enjoying ducklings antics. Loads of crawling! exploring! picking at things! mainly off the ground. Reading and singing to duckling. Providing running commentary for what is currently being done, all in anticipation for when baby words start to sprout. Duckling (and we) have come a long long long way from when we were so unsure of ourselves. Duckling needing comfort, food and sleep and us needing reasurance that we weren’t in danger of breaking the baby. These past few months have become Fun, with a capital F.
It turns out that time does indeed fly when one is having Fun.
Warm in the cold
We have our first major cold emergency in the duck house. With a tiny red cheeked runny nose duck as the main victim. Duckling is miserable and that pretty much means we are all getting little sleep while we fend off the cold with medication, reams of tissue, inhalation, vapourisers, not to mention oranges, tea and sympathy.
We’ve been staying indoors, avoiding the gusty wintery weather and childpoofing for an increasingly active baby. All tasks that take up more energy than two exhausted ducks can really muster. Duckling is understandably clingy, burrowing their little face into our necks for comfort while hanging on like koala bear. We feel quite powerless in the face of a virus that must run its course to get out of the system.
A year ago this time, I was sitting with my feet up imagining how our lives would change once duckling arrived. I guess now I know.
High tension, like on a wire
I have to be honest and say that my new year resolution is to breathe. And not hold my breath in so much.
The first 6 or so months of this motherhood gig kicked my organised ass to timbuktoo and back. No matter how much stuff I bought, no matter how well I planned or timed or organised, this little duck just made me throw all my plans and words straight out the window. I can safely say, without qualm, that I have no maternal genes. And that the second half of the year gone by was like walking on a tightrope, continuously wondering which side I would fall on, how many ways in which I could do irreparable damage to duckling, mentally, physically, always unwittingly. Whether it was feeding, changing diapers, going out for the shortest walk, putting duckling to sleep, all of it was done with a breath held in. Sure that I was doing it wrong or only vaguely right. I never got out much what with the need to precision plan the shortest of outings and carry supplies that would make an army logistician grin. I missed so many coffee mornings and singing times and baby yoga classes that I eventually decided not to bother. I imagined secret society of motherhood at all these events laughing at me for being tardy, my baby for having rubbish nap times. But mostly I worried that duckling and I were not bonding what with the endless worry for survival.
I spent all morning of duckling’s 6 month birthday grinning like an idiot because I, no make that we, had survived. Duckling cooo-ed and gaaa-ed while I ate brownies and planned which classes we’ll go for in this 6 months.
The road ahead
What a way to bring in the new year! We are training duckling to fall asleep without feeding or being cuddled. And of course we took this momentous decision on New Years eve. So we spent an entire evening (ok I jest, just 2 hours) listening to constant whining fom the cot till we picked up duckling at midnight, planted a fat kiss on cheek and put duckling back down. At 5 past midnight duckling was asleep. Of course this has not worked on any of the subsequent days – we’ve had flaking out while feeding and hysterical crying to contend with amidst other reactions to this HOROR.OF.BEING.ABANDONED. But I feel we are getting there. Or atleast the road to a full nights sleep does not seem unachievable in 2010.
Happy new year from duckworld!
First Christmas
We are not Christian. But that does not stop us from thinking of and loving the festival and singing the carols out loud and vaguely in tune to the CD of music. Part of the all inclusivness and acceptance and enjoyment of all religions that we want duckling to grow up with.
My mother used to make us a little tree out of her bangle stand and and chains of green crepe paper. And although we knew that Santa Claus would not come for us we would always get small gifts and be encouraged to go and enjoy the festivities with friends who were Christian. I’ve attended midnight masses, eaten delicious rum soaked cake, been indulged in large spreads of good food and included in festive cheer. I hope some day I can replicate that feeling for duckling. Merry Christmas baby.
Exhaustion
I am often always so tired that I dream of being asleep when I am asleep. As if I could double up and be in deeper sleep if I dreamt about it.
Besides the exhaustion that accompanies even the very best of ducklings (and mine is tempramentally a good ‘un) it’s been a fun ride so far.
I can totally see why no one can ever adequately explain the bone aching exhaustion of motherhood- its indescribable and would surely put an end to the species. I can be such a drama queen. But I shall not apologise.
Dairy Diaries II
1. Breastfeeding is not fun.
2. My mother seems to rememer it akin to skipping through a bluebell field. A joyful time.
3. To me it is a mine field filled with continuous trepidation. A chore without joy.
4. I feel locked up at home, like a cow. Like in a milk booth at the mercy of milk token wielding baby.
5. Like a slave to feeding, my day seems to revolve around sitting up with a wailing baby hanging from my chest.
6. I do not feel duckling and me bond in this ‘magical’ experience. At other times yes, this time no.
7. I am sick of mothers of bottlefed babies telling me how lucky I am.
8. Would you like my swollen, sore, leaking boobs?
9. Which I might add will never be seen by either boy nor myself as anything to delight in.
10. In short, breastfeeding is not fun.
Sob
All it takes is a few hours of hysterical crying (on the part of duckling) and various solutions such as checking for a dirty diaper, feeding, rocking, walking the corridors (on the part of first time ducks) for everyone to feel inept and totally out of their depth. I am exhausted beyond belief tonight and it isn’t even midnight yet.
This is what about 6 hours of intermittent hysteria will do to a sane woman. Of course Boy duck is totally being a cool cucumber doing most of the roking and walking and shush-ing and singing soothing words. Meanwhile all I want to do is stand under a hot shower and cry my eyes out. And then magically wake up at noon tomorrow with a perfectly happy and content baby duck.
Not a chance right? But a woman has got to dream right! G’nite.
Must be something wrong somewhere
I am so tired of hearing and reading women in real life and women bloggers go on about how if they don’t/ can’t/ couldn’t experience natural childbirth (i.e pushing a multi-pound award winning baby out of their vagina’s with only minimal/ some help of pain relief) they will not/ don’t feel like wholesome women. They all claim that this one experience is what would complete them, make the passage of childbirth worth bearing etc.
I beg to differ. And therefore infer that there must be something fundamentally wrong with me or with you. I mean after 9 months of waddling like a hippo, burping and farting like a truck driver, not being able to eat sushi or soft goats cheese, really all I wanted was a happy healthy baby. I was totally happy to leave the medical decision to my doctor as to what was best for us both, baby and me. Yes a natural birth may have been easier to recover from but there are so many more things that could go wrong, besides the pain of a long labour. Also a c-sec for medical reasons (not planned, as in too posh to push) has so many advantages, not least the amazing pain relief and near invisible scar, the fact that I was not writhing in pain and crushing Boy’s hand or hopped up on drugs yelling obscenities. It also rendered the yelling duck pulled from my innards a memory not fogged out in any way by drugs or intense pain but instead a clear focussed snapshot in time. And yes, I hear there is adrenaline involved in natural births which would make this true for women undergoing natural birth but really with all those drugs and all that pain there must have been a twinge of blurring, no? Anyway, to each their own. I have no regrets and would not hesitate to opt for the same option for the same reasons if I had to do it all over again.
Yes some women think of this as a marathon, a motivational get to the finish line, look at me how bloody brave I am. I guess I am just not one of those women. And I don’t appreciate being constantly told how wonderful natural childbirth is, how a c-sec could never compare etc. Go away self-righteous people. I’m having too much fun with my duck, c-sec’d out of me.
